The life and times of a gardener, a cook, and the journey in between...

Monday, March 29, 2010

Quick Bread

Andrew and I have made many attempts at bread. Some have turned out wonderfully, while others became heavy bricks only valuable to folks involved in organized crime. The good ones often took a lot of time and would consume much of a weekend day with two sets of kneading and rising. I was lamenting this to my mother one day and she suggested (gasp) that I buy a bread machine. Really? A bread machine? I put bread machines on a level with rice cookers and microwaves, handy, no question about that, but not real cooking. I wanted to find a bread recipe that was from scratch, homemade, easy, tasty, and quick (relatively speaking). I have a huge cookbook of breads from around the world, and not a single one of those recipes was quick or easy. I searched the web for recipes and managed to make a few mediocre loaves that were a small step above dense. Justifiably, I was starting to think that bread just wasn't my thing. I clearly didn't have the patience for it. But then, I starting collecting recipes for a little cookbook my daughter's school is creating, and low and behold, a quick bread recipe was submitted. I was skeptical, but I gave it a try. Delicious! Easy! Quick! Soft! Fresh! This bread was the real deal. So, look no further, homemade bread is now in your future too.

Combine 2 cups of flour, salt, sugar, herbs, and onion powder. Dissolve yeast in the warm water. Add yeast/water mixture and olive oil to the flour mixture. Mix well with a mixer. Once uniform, add final cup of flour and mix well. Cover and let rise 30-45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the dough into a ball, toss onto a piece of cornmeal covered foil. Rub outside of dough with extra olive oil and dust with herbs as desired. Place on a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

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My husband and I started planting vegetables over a year ago and have since fallen in love with gardening and cooking. This is my collection of recipes, real life, and memories straight from our Santa Barbara garden. Enjoy!